HELPING

[hope001]

HELPING
My role as helper is not to do things for the person I am trying to help, but to be things; not
trying to control and change his actions, but through understanding and awareness to change
my reactions. I will change my negatives to positives; fear to faith; contempt for what he may
do to respect for the potential within him or her; hostility to understanding; and manipulation
or over-protectiveness to release with love, not trying to make him fit a standard or image,
but giving him an opportunity to pursue his own destiny, regardless of what that choice may
be.
I will change my dominance to encouragement; panic to serenity; the inertia of despair to the
energy of my own personal growth; and self-justification to self-understanding.
Self-pity blocks effective action. The more I indulge in it, the more I feel that the answer to
my problems is a change in others and in society, not in myself. Thus, I become a hopeless
case.
Exhaustion is the result when I use my energy in mulling over the past with regret, or in
trying to figure ways to escape a future that has yet to arrive. Projecting an image of the
future, and anxiously hovering over it, for fear that it will or it won't come true uses all of my
energy and leaves me unable to live today. Yet living today is the only way to have a life.
I will have no thought for the future actions of others, neither expecting them to be better or
worse as time goes on, for in such expectations I am really trying to create. I will love and let
be.
All people are always changing. If I try to judge them I do so only on what I think I know of
them, failing to realize that there is much I do not know. I will give others credit for attempts
at progress and for having had many victories which are unknown to me.
I too am always changing, and I can make that change a constructive one, if I am willing. I
CAN CHANGE MYSELF, others I can only love.

This is one of the 5 readings read at the start of each FA meeting. It is as relevant to me today as it was 4 years ago.

[saddad]

Thank you for these words Hope. I'm in a bad place right now emotionally, I know it will get better but it's very hard, and reading this has lifted me a bit.

[paulineanne]

Thank you Hope such wonderful advice and I will keep reading the passage so it will help me too. It is so difficult to let go and we go on constantly worried about our loved ones when they are in the throes of drug abuse. What we have to remember is they made that decision to go that route. My son after his last episode ain hospital blamed me saying I did not give him enough love. That is why he had to take drugs. I said he took that choice and I had been always there for him. I visited him 3 to 4 times in hospital eventhough it was nearly 2 hours each way. I did that for myself as wanted to see how he really was . But I also did it for him.

When I saw my drugs support worker on Thursday she really did impress on me to stand back now and let go. I am really trying to do that and trying to enjoy the little thing in life that I like doing. I must get my own life back. Remember they have theirs and they are not really caring about us at all.

So yes I will keep reading that and I will change myself and continue just to love my son nothing else.
Take care everyone. xx

[Primrose]

Thanks so much for posting this. I did go to a few meetings some time ago, but was quite a distance to travel. It did me a power of good to read this again. Very hard not to judge your own child and try to encourage him to tread a better path. And it seems to be a sort of grieving process for what we might have wished for them. There's certainly a lot to learn as we go through life, but I hang on to the knowledge that these rough times are the opportunity to change.